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Four Enterprise App Development Challenges and Ways to Deal With Them

Enterprises are moving beyond the BYOD model and embracing mobile application development to make themselves app-ready. According to IDC, “the enterprise apps will outstrip consumer apps in 2016”. This clearly indicates that building apps is no longer a fad but has rather become a necessity for larger organizations.

When it comes to developing enterprise applications, keep in mind that they are not just for the customers, but also prove useful to the workforce as well. Thus, any mobile app development company will need to focus on building applications keeping in mind the need of customers and workers. Furthermore, there are several other challenges that a developer will likely face during enterprise mobile app development. Referring to market statistics, you’ll get to know some relevant facts in this context. For one, “the demand for enterprise mobile apps will exceed the app development capacity to five times,” according to a survey done by Gartner Inc.

This article will help you gain knowledge of the biggest challenges associated with major enterprise app development and how they can be overcome.

1. Diversity (or Fragmentation) of Platforms

The first major challenge you will encounter when developing an enterprise app is the availability of diverse platforms. Currently, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are two of the most preferred and widely used platforms. So at the time of app creation, you need to consider specific features of both the platforms since they require distinguished expertise and coding skills to get the job done with efficiency. However, acquiring in-depth knowledge of Android and iOS platforms can be overwhelming for mobile application developers.

The best way to deal with the platform fragmentation issue is to make use of tools such as PhoneGap and others that helps in performing cross-platform app development with ease. Using such a tool, developers get the ability to deploy apps to many different devices and operating systems.

2. User Interface (UI)

Enterprise applications are, in general, used by the workers within an organization. Thus, developers often overlook the “look and feel” of the app and focus more on its functionality. After all, people using enterprise apps will be more pleased with the app helping them get their job done in a better and easier manner than how cool it looks. No doubt, aesthetics are also important, but usability holds more significance than visual appeal. But that does not mean, we can ignore aesthetics completely.

A viable alternative to developing a successful enterprise app is to create a balance between the functions and design. To do so consider making use of icons. Icons help in making the app UI useful and good looking at the same time. One significant advantage of icons is how they assist in explaining what function a button performs.

3. Security Concerns

Cyber attacks are becoming more sophisticated with time, and thus, developers are making every possible effort in building secure apps. However, the problem arises when an app developer is required to implement security measures for protecting application that runs on multiple devices and operating systems. As security infringements are becoming more frequent, developers often fail to prevent attackers from gaining access to the enterprise data.

An excellent way to cope up with enterprise app security challenges is to limit access to the data of your organization by making the corporate network more stable.

4. Choice of App Development Approach

Before developing an app, it is necessary to decide whether you wish to build a native, hybrid, or a web app. Choosing the app development approach pose to be a challenge, especially when you need to meet the specific considerations of an enterprise.

Well, if you have budget and skills to develop an app for one particular platform (like iOS or Android or any other), you can consider building a native app. However, with BYOD approach being implemented in almost all the enterprises, you’ll need your app to be accessible on multiple devices. In that case, developing a hybrid/HTML5 app makes sense.

Wrapping Up

The rise in demand for enterprise apps brings forth several challenges. However, considering the growing need for enterprise applications among organizations, it becomes needful for developers to seek solutions to deal with the challenges that they are likely to face during enterprise mobile app development.